Last Updated: October 9, 2026
Podvo (“we”, “our”, “us”) is a podcast player for Android and iOS. This policy explains exactly what the app stores, what it sends over the network, and to whom. It is written to match the app’s actual behaviour — if you find a discrepancy, treat it as a bug and tell us.
There are no user accounts. You never register, log in, or give us your name or email to use Podvo.
| What | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Subscriptions, queue, playback positions, history, settings, downloads, recommendation listening signals | Stay on your device |
| Podcast feeds, artwork, episode audio | Fetched directly from the publisher’s servers (except feeds in the web app — see Section 4a) |
| Ad-skip lookups (podcast name, episode title, episode audio URL, episode description, country, install ID) | Sent to our ad-analysis service, api.dawncast.uk |
| Podcast searches (search text and country code) | Sent to Apple Podcasts search |
| First-run interest questions, and Home’s Popular and topic tabs (country code, chart categories, show IDs) | Sent to Apple Podcasts charts and lookup; your answers stay on your device |
| Home’s Popular list (nothing about you; the same request for everyone) | Downloaded from our server, api.dawncast.uk |
| Podcast searches and discovery category lookups that Apple cannot answer (query text only) | Sent to our search service, api.dawncast.uk |
| Automatic searches for recently heard guests (guest name only) | Sent to Apple Podcasts search; if Apple has no results, the search service fallback may receive the name |
| Automatic topic enrichment (feed URL, podcast name, chapter titles, unresolved episode IDs, titles and descriptions) | Sent to our topic service, api.dawncast.uk |
| Browsing by guest or topic in downloaded feeds | Stays on your device |
| Finding a guest’s episodes on other shows (guest name only) | Sent to Apple Podcasts search; if Apple has no results, the search service fallback may receive the name |
| Guest photos & bios (guest name/public person ID only) | Sent to Wikipedia and Wikidata (Wikimedia Foundation) |
| Snips (the moments you save from an episode) | Stay on your device |
| Crash reports | Written to your device only; sent nowhere unless you explicitly share one |
| Casting / DLNA discovery | Stays on your local Wi-Fi network |
The bold rows highlight requests explained in more detail below. Section 3 covers ad-skip in full (and you can turn it off); Section 4 covers the search fallback; Section 4a covers the feed proxy, which only affects the web app; Section 5 covers smart topics, which are automatically enriched when the service is available; Section 5a covers guest discovery and photos, which are always enabled.
The following is written to your device’s private app storage and is not transmitted to us:
You can erase all of it at any time via your device settings (Android: Settings > Apps > Podvo > Storage > Clear Data; iOS: delete the app). Uninstalling removes everything.
Podvo can automatically skip advertising inside episodes. Doing this requires analysis that cannot run on your phone, so the app asks our ad-analysis service about the episode you are about to play. To make queue transitions seamless, it also asks about the episode at the front of Up Next while the current episode is still playing. The Clips feed uses the same analysis to find short moments; to make Clips useful for new listeners, it can also ask about a small, fixed selection of current episodes from popular channels that you have not followed or played. If you answered the optional “What do you like?” questions, it can also ask about recent episodes from shows those answers suggested.
When ad-skip is enabled and you play, download, place an episode at the front of Up Next, or
Podvo prepares an episode for the Clips discovery feed, the app sends the following to
https://api.dawncast.uk/ads:
early_accessThe service replies with the positions of ads in that episode, chapter markers, and, where one exists, the matching YouTube video ID for the episode.
Audiobooks are never sent. Chapters of an audiobook (including every LibriVox book) carry no ads, so Podvo makes no ad-skip lookup for them, and they are also left out of the show analysis described in Section 5 (Smart Topics).
What this means in practice: the service can infer which episodes you play, except that requests for the fixed popular-channel Clips pool do not mean you followed or listened to those episodes. Requests for shows your answers suggested are linked to your install ID like any other, so the service could infer the kinds of shows you said you like. It does not receive your name, email, phone number, contacts, location, IP-based profile, advertising ID, or any device identifier.
The install ID is a random number generated on your device the first time ad-skip runs. It is not derived from your hardware, your Google/Apple account, or any advertising identifier. It is sent so the service can tell one installation from another, for rate limiting and, when ad-skip becomes a paid feature, to recognise a valid subscription. Today the service does not store it.
You can view it and generate a fresh one at any time under Settings > Ad skipping > Install ID. Resetting it severs the link between your earlier and later lookups. Clearing app data or reinstalling also produces a new one.
Settings > Ad skipping > Skip ads disables the feature. When it is off, Podvo makes no requests to the ad-analysis service at all. Everything else in the app continues to work.
Ad analysis is cached per episode, not per listener, so that the next person to play the same episode gets an instant answer. The cache holds the episode’s public details (podcast name, episode title, audio URL) and its ad positions, with nothing about who asked.
Like any web server, ours keeps technical logs so we can run, secure and fix the service. They can include the time, your IP address and the address requested, and for ad-skip the podcast name, episode title and country. They do not include your install ID. We use them only to operate the service and keep them only as long as that needs.
Ad-skip is currently free during early access: each install gets three months of ad-skip at no cost. We intend to make it a paid subscription feature in future, and when the free period ends Podvo stops sending ad-skip lookups. That change will not alter what is described above; if it ever does, this policy will be updated first.
When you search for a podcast, Podvo sends your search text to Apple’s public podcast
search API to get results. This is the primary source and handles almost every search.
The request also carries a two-letter country code (for example GB) so Apple answers
from that country’s directory — otherwise “football” means the NFL everywhere. The code
is the country you pick in the app or, if you haven’t picked one, the country your phone
reports for its mobile network or SIM card (on Android), falling back to your device’s
region setting. Podvo reads this on the device and does not use location services, GPS
or a location permission. The search fallback described
below does not receive the country code.
Apple’s index does not list every podcast — independent and niche shows are frequently missing, and some searches come back empty even when results plainly exist. Only when Apple returns no results at all, Podvo retries the same search text against Podcast Index, an open, community-funded podcast directory.
That retry goes through our server at api.dawncast.uk/podcasts/search, because the
Podcast Index API requires credentials that cannot safely be stored inside an app. The
request contains your search text and nothing else — no install ID, no account, no
device information. Search text is not stored against an install ID or account, though it
can appear in the server’s technical logs described in Section 3.
If Podcast Index is unavailable, the same request falls back once more to fyyd.de, another public podcast directory.
The server fallback happens only on a directory lookup that Apple could not answer.
Home and “More like this” can also perform a small number of automatic directory lookups using public podcast categories, such as Comedy or Science, from shows in your library or the show you are browsing. The category text is sent through the same Apple search and, if needed, server fallback described above. Providers also receive the normal IP address and request headers associated with an internet request. Listening records, completion history, personalised scores and recommendation visibility are not included. Suggestions fetch a bounded selection of public RSS feeds directly from publishers (through the feed proxy on web), and cache metadata on the device. Maximum data-saving mode skips these optional discovery requests on a metered connection.
Daily Mix also uses listening signals stored on your device to recommend new episodes from shows you have heard without following them. It can read a short RSS page from up to six such shows (two in Reduced data-saving mode), sharing the device’s discovery cache with Home. Publishers receive the usual feed request and IP address; we do not send your listening time, completion history or personalised scores with that request. Maximum data-saving mode skips these optional requests on a metered connection.
To suggest other episodes featuring guests from your recent listening, Home can search for up to five guest names in Apple’s public podcast directory. If Apple has no results, the existing directory fallback may receive the same name. The request contains the guest name, not the episode you heard, the show, your listening time, or a user ID. Podvo checks returned titles and descriptions on your device to discard episodes that merely discuss the person. Successful results are cached for twelve hours; data-saving mode limits or skips these optional searches. Clearing listening history also removes this guest-search cache.
The optional “What do you like?” questions, offered on first launch and from Settings, run on your device. For your answers Podvo downloads Apple’s public top-podcast charts for the matching categories in your country (for example the UK Football chart), and looks up those shows and a small hand-picked list in Apple’s directory. To balance your country’s picks, it also reads the same charts for the United States. Apple receives the country code, the chart categories and the show IDs (from which the topics you picked can be inferred, as with a search), plus your IP address. It receives no install ID or listening data. The questions themselves send nothing to our servers. Your answers and the suggested shows are stored on your device. Home then uses them for “Because you like…” suggestions, fetching a few recent episodes from at most six suggested shows directly from their publishers. Clips may analyse those episodes as described in Section 3.
Home’s Popular tab and its topic tabs (Comedy, Sport, Football and so on) use the
same public Apple charts and lookup. At most once a day, Popular downloads one list of
popular shows for every country from our server, api.dawncast.uk. The request is the
same for everyone and sends nothing about you, not even your country; your device picks
your country’s list out of it, and our server sees only the IP address any internet request
carries. The Trending tab reads Apple’s overall top-podcasts chart for your country, and
both look their shows up in Apple’s directory. A topic tab reads that topic’s
chart for your country and the United States and looks up the shows on it, plus a small
hand-picked list. Apple receives the country code, the chart category of the tab you opened
and the show IDs, plus your IP address; no search text, install ID or listening data. Each
tab then fetches the newest episode of its first few shows directly from their publishers
(fifteen at most, five in Reduced data-saving mode, none in Maximum data-saving mode on a
metered connection).
Recommendations currently use local listening signals and public show metadata, with an editorial starter catalogue. We do not collect audience-wide recommendation analytics or use YouTube viewing statistics to rank podcasts.
This section applies only to Podvo in a web browser. The Android and iOS apps fetch feeds directly from the publisher and are unaffected by anything here.
A web browser will not let a page read a podcast feed from another website unless that
website explicitly allows it, and most podcast hosts do not. Without a way around this the
web app cannot load any show at all. So when you open a podcast in the browser, Podvo
asks our server at api.dawncast.uk/web/feed to fetch that feed and pass it back.
What is sent: the feed’s web address, and nothing else. No install ID, no account, no device information, and nothing identifying you. Our server fetches the feed as an ordinary podcast app would; the publisher sees a request from our server rather than from you, which means your IP address is not disclosed to the podcast host.
What is stored: nothing about you. The fetched feed may be held briefly in a shared cache (about 15 minutes) so that opening the same popular show twice does not fetch it twice. That cache is keyed on the feed address alone and is not associated with any person, request or identifier.
Why it is not optional in the browser: unlike ad-skip, this is not a feature that can be switched off and leave the app working — it is how the web app loads a podcast at all. If you would rather your feed choices never reach our server, use the Android or iOS app, which fetches feeds directly from the publisher.
Smart playlists and podcast pages can filter a show by subject — “only the science episodes of this podcast”. Podvo first works this out on your device from public feed text. The automatic server pass fills gaps and reuses topic chapters already generated for an episode.
Topic enrichment is automatic for everyone when the service is configured and reachable. There is no individual on/off setting. Local topics remain available offline or when the service cannot provide a result.
When you open a podcast’s full catalogue, select shows in a smart-playlist editor, or the
app refreshes shows used by a topic-filtered playlist, the app can send the following to
https://api.dawncast.uk/library/analyse:
All of it is already public information from the podcast’s RSS feed. These requests carry no install ID, account or listening history. They identify the show being categorised.
A short list of topics and which apply to each unresolved episode, plus guest names when found. The response can also include chapter titles already generated and cached when that podcast’s episodes were analysed previously; these let the app recognise additional subjects such as cosmology without sending the rest of your local episode list. The result is stored on your device.
Topic classification is cached per episode, not per listener, so the next person to filter the same show gets an instant answer without us re-analysing it. These requests are not associated with an install ID.
Results are stored on your device. An already refined index is reused until the catalogue changes or the index is rebuilt. Failed or incomplete requests may be tried again on a later visit or refresh, with a minimum 15-minute interval per show on that device. The service also records aggregate daily model-attempt and token counts, without listener identifiers, to control processing costs. The app does not submit every subscription for topic analysis during an ordinary background refresh; background enrichment is limited to shows used by topic-filtered playlists.
Episode lists can be filtered by who is on the episode and what it is about. The initial answer is worked out on your device from feed data and works offline. Automatic enrichment in Section 5 can improve it when the service is available. The cross-show feature first matches episodes in shows already on your device. Opening a guest profile or the player’s “More with” section also searches the wider podcast directory for the guest’s name, including podcasts they host. The name alone is sent to Apple Podcasts search, with the search service fallback described in Section 4 if Apple has no results. Podvo checks the returned episodes on your device and shows the matches alongside the local results. It does not send the episode you are playing, its show, or your listening history with this search. While the guest profile or player recommendations are open, Podvo reads shortlisted publishers’ RSS channel headers to display their actual show names and covers and distinguish hosts from guests. Episode notes and the guest’s cached or resolved biography are checked locally to distinguish people who share a name; those contextual details are not sent to podcast search or feed publishers. Hosted podcasts appear as channel links rather than guest episode counts. Each publisher receives a normal feed request, including your IP address, as described in Section 6.
Guest profiles are always enabled. Podvo asks Wikipedia for a photo and a one-line description of a guest. If that short biography cannot confirm a podcast they host, Podvo may also fetch the introductory paragraphs of the same resolved Wikipedia article. Only its public page title is sent; the podcast candidates and episode notes are checked locally. This additional evidence is cached on your device for up to 30 days before refreshing.
What is sent: the guest’s name or matching page title goes to Wikipedia
(en.wikipedia.org). The public Wikidata item ID linked from that page goes to Wikidata
(www.wikidata.org) to verify that the page describes a human, independently of the
wording of its description. Both are operated by the Wikimedia Foundation — not by us.
No episode, podcast, account, device or install identifier is sent. Wikimedia sees your
IP address and can infer which public person was looked up; its privacy policy governs
those requests.
How often: cached by guest name across episodes and shows. When requested again, complete profiles refresh after thirty days, profiles missing a photo or biography after seven days, and unmatched names after one day. An unmatched name can be retried sooner when another episode provides different context; that context stays on your device. Existing photos and bios remain available if a refresh fails.
We do not include any third-party advertising SDK, analytics SDK, attribution SDK, or tracking library in Podvo.
If Podvo crashes, a technical report (the error, the app version, your Android/iOS version, and your device model) is written to the app’s private storage on your device.
These are never transmitted automatically. No crash-reporting service is built into the app. If you want to help us fix a crash, Settings > About > Send crash report hands the file to your device’s share sheet so you can choose to email it to us. Only the ten most recent reports are kept.
Android permissions Podvo requests, and why:
| Permission | Purpose |
|---|---|
INTERNET |
Fetch feeds, stream and download episodes, ad-skip lookups |
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, ACCESS_WIFI_STATE |
Detect Wi-Fi vs mobile data for the “download on Wi-Fi only” rule |
CHANGE_WIFI_MULTICAST_STATE |
Discover Cast and DLNA devices on your local network (SSDP multicast) |
FOREGROUND_SERVICE, FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PLAYBACK |
Keep audio playing when the app is in the background |
POST_NOTIFICATIONS |
Show the playback notification and its controls (Android 13+) |
WAKE_LOCK |
Prevent the device sleeping mid-episode |
RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED |
Re-register the background feed refresh after a restart |
Podvo requests no access to contacts, location, camera, microphone, or your files.
Podvo is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Podvo has no accounts, and our servers keep no record linked to you or your install ID, so there is no account to access, export, or delete. Everything about your listening is on your device: clear the app’s data or uninstall it to remove it.
If you are in the UK/EU and want to exercise a right regarding our server’s technical logs (Section 3), contact us and we will help.
We may update this policy. Material changes — particularly any change to what leaves your device — will be reflected here with a new “Last Updated” date before the behaviour ships.